9730045 Bash This awards supports the participation of 12 US scientists in a US-South Africa Workshop: The Hobby-Eberly Telescope as a Model for the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), which is scheduled for March 1998 in Cape Town, South Africa. The principal investigator and workshop co-organizer is Dr. Frank N. Bash, Director of the McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin. The South African co-organizer is Dr. Bob Stobie, Director of the South African Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland, South Africa. The US participants will include astronomers who were involved in the project to build the Hobby Eberly Telescope and representatives of private companies that built the equipment. The South African participants include astronomers and representatives from industry likely to be involved in the SALT project. The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is a collaboration among the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, and Georg-August University in Gottingen. The telescope has a special design in which it is configured to do astronomical spectroscopy, is restricted to see only about 80 percent of the available sky, and is able to follow (track) celestial objects for only about one hour. However, the HET has a primary mirror with a diameter of 11 meters (433 inches) and costs $13.5 million without instruments. Comparable telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, (the Keck Telescopes) cost about $85 million each. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss the possibility of using the HET as a model for a new Southern African Large Telescope at Sutherland. This award is cofunded with the Division of Astronomy.
